Thanksgiving Ponderings

I had a good Thanksgiving weekend. I did just what I said I was going to do...eat and then take a nap on my couch. I didn’t travel to CT because travel's just too difficult to arrange right now and I won’t for Christmas either, but I did talk to my sister. I did have one invite, but I just decided I was sick of driving a car and didn’t want to have to do that for a couple of days. So I found a small turkey breast which was free range and had all organic veggies and potatoes and gravy, stuffed myself and as predicted was out like a light on my couch for 2 hours or so.

I usually use the holidays for downtime. In Minnesota, when someone would ask me if I had any plans for the holidays and I would say "no", some people there would say "oh", not "why don’t you come to our place?". So I guess I’ve gotten used to making plans on my own when the holidays come. But, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal the previous Friday with my work family, a great potluck with a wonderful group of songwriters the weekend before and I just had lunch with my church CARE group. So, that’s people enough. It doesn't make it less because all this didn't happen on Thanksgiving day itself. After all, I've thumbed my nose at the Hallmark way of life for years.

But now the weekend’s almost over and it’s time to go back to work again tomorrow. I procrastinated until the last minute to get my month end writings done. I think I have one piece done and I need an ending for another. To think I had four days to do all this. I did do another podcast, though, a short one about Internet radio (which I hadn’t talked about previously).

The weather, well, it’s been kind of depressing the last few days. It’s been gray, rainy and was as cold as low/mid 40s for a high. I actually did break out the lighter parka once. But if this is as cold as it gets here, I’ll take it.

Once again...I love this town. I’m thankful to be here.

Baptism

Yesterday I was baptized as an adult, with many wonderful new friends from my church looking on and one dear musician friend who offered me the gift of her voice. I'll let you read her account of it here: http://allisonlynn.blogspot.com/

I was baptized as a child. I was approached about baptism as an adult when I joined my church here. I thought it would be a great idea to do it to symbolize where I really am now in my faith. I had the honor of being baptized by Pastor Stan Mitchell, who I've written about in other pieces on this website--so it was meaningful to me to have him be a part of this.

Allison's simple acoustic rendition of "Jesus Loves Me" set the scene for us all beautifully. Many other musical images came to my mind regarding baptism: the scene from "O Brother Where Art Thou?" with the song "Down In the River To Pray", Trent Tomlinson's video for "One Wing In the Fire" and the Randy Travis/Kenny Chesney song "Baptism", which I first heard in the "Touched By An Angel" episode Randy starred in.

The water was warm, and so was the feeling that afternoon.

Blast From The Past

As I was doing some radio airplay tracking for a client on a folk dj mailing list group, I came across a post from John Platt who hosts "City Folk Sunday Breakfast" on WFUV. He noted that he had Steve Katz and Danny Kalb, formerly of the Blues Project, in for an interview in support of their new acoustic blues collaboration with Stefan Grossman, "Played A Little Fiddle". As a 12 and 13 year old growing up in the 60s and in discovery of FM rock, the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat and Tears were two groups that meant a lot to me. So naturally when I heard about this interview, it was like throwing a huge bone to this puppy.

Now, as I've noted elsewhere on my website, I was a big Al Kooper fan. His vocal style didn't exactly get rave critical reviews (but that didn't matter to me and to this day it still doesn't), but to me he was real and passionate. One other prominent vocalist in the Blues Project and BS & T was Steve Katz, much different in style, with a warm voice like velvet, one that always caused me to lean into the speakers whenever songs like "Steve's Song" or "Sometimes In Winter" were played. Al, bless his heart, is still out there doing his thing with another new album due from him soon, but Steve has been off my radar for years. So, it was great to hear this interview and especially to hear him sing again, both in clips from the CD and as an extra treat in the interview, a live acoustic performance of "Sometimes In Winter". His voice retains that warm beauty and reminded me what it was like to hear him back when I was 13. I sure would have loved it if he’d done "Steve's Song" as well, but hey, you take these bones when you can get them.

I do ponder this: judging by some of the e-mail I received on my pieces about 60's FM radio and the over 1,000 plays my podcast on this topic registered just this year alone, it's obvious that 40 years later, the music of this time is still endearing, passionate and meaningful to so many of us boomers. It reflected an important time in history, one of intense cultural and social change. I just wonder if the music that the 13 year olds are growing up with today will have the same lasting effect.

Thus, I now have to buy this Grossman/Kalb/Katz CD and the Blues Project Anthology. Because now, I've got "Flute Thing" playing in my head, too.